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Before beginning, unplug your iMac and lay it on a soft surface as shown.

Stick a suction cup near each of the two top corners of the glass panel.

To attach the suction cups we sell, first position the suction cup with the movable handle parallel to the face of the glass panel. While lightly holding the suction cup against the glass, raise the movable handle until it is parallel with the other handle.

If your suction cups refuse to stick, try cleaning both the glass panel and the suction cup with a mild solvent.

Success replacing the stock ST31000528AS with a STBD3000100 (Dead 1TB to new 3TB, both Seagate). First try. Using another Mac and a quality Firewire 800 cable, I formatted it using Target Disk mode, 2 partitions (defaults, except I made the first one bigger than the second). To the second, smaller one, I copied a bootable Install OS X Mavericks partition. Tried to boot. It booted, and I installed; nary a glitch. (Running the Installer over Firewire would have been faster, but I didn't want to reboot this machine.)

I SKIPPED steps 6, 7 AND 8! Instead, after doing Step 5, I noticed I then had enough room and cable length to access the screws in Step 11 if I lifted the LCD up an inch or so, rotated it about 20-30 degrees clockwise and moved it a couple inches toward the base, and put it down. After removing them (Step 11), I propped up the LCD (with a spare spudger) and had enough room to do Steps 12, 13, and 14 without much difficulty. Felt safer/less work and risk than not skipping steps 6-8. No risk of the damage Ersan and Michael caused performing Step 7!

I wonder why. What's the deal, Geoff? I mean I'd understand if I suggested folks didn't need the suction cups, as that could cut into iFixit's income stream, but what's wrong with suggesting that a few steps aren't needed? It worked for me; the EMC 2389 I fixed is humming along with a new 3TB HD I installed while skipping those steps.

I did not have to remove a single cable! After undoing the torx screws from the sides, I was able to rotate the LCD out of the way enough to reach all the screws holding in the ODD bracket. One of them was a bit challenging to get to, but I never felt that I was risking the cables by leaving them connected. Also, it wasn't totally clear, but you have to actually remove the ODD itself from the ODD bracket - 4 torx screws. The SDD mounts into the hard drive enclosure, then the enclosure is screwed into the bracket. Those holes (enclosure <-> Bracket) did not line up correctly for me, and I had to go with only three of them connected in the end. Seems to work fine.

Another comment on DATA & LCD Temp. Sensor cables: I had to remove the vertical sync, and the backlight cable, however, if you have an assistant or/can carefully rotate the screen clockwise/and then have it held up about 5" to 6" at a slight angle, you do not need to remove LCD data cable or LCD thermal cable, however - IMPORTANT: you must have a second pair of hands/or way to securely prop up the LCD. Also, don't rotate too much, since then you will pull out LCD data cable, and it renders the whole exercise moot, or can damage the cable or connector.

No need for suction cups, I just stuck my nails (short like guys usually have) between the top part of the screen and body, and it came off easily. I've never done it before, so it seems to be very easy.

Just completed the replacement of the optical drive with an SSD using an OWC Data Doubler kit. Attempted to remove the optical drive without disconnecting any cables but found it a bit fiddly to orient the screen for good access. I bit the bullet and disconnected them and found the process less daunting than I imagined. Reconnecting them was similarly straightforward if you're careful.

Tip: you can skip the step for removing the optical drive thermal sensor connector from the motherboard. Still need to remove the sensor from the optical drive but you can leave that hanging and reattach it to the SSD later.

I have an odd question -- I want to remove the polarizer from the LCD. With some monitors this is trivial, others not so much. My question is whether it is bonded to the Liquid crystal, or whether it's loose, or cutting it with a razor blade would remove it. Obviously I'd like to know before I go to the trouble of dismantling the thing... Thanks. Paul

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Gently lift the glass panel perpendicular to the face of the LCD enough to clear the steel mounting pins attached along the underside of the top edge of the glass panel.

Pull the glass panel away from the lower edge of the iMac and carefully set it aside.

During reinstallation, be sure to meticulously clean the inside of the glass panel and the face of the LCD as any dust or fingerprints trapped inside will be annoyingly visible when the machine is turned on.

On reassembly, it is REALLY HARD to align those screws, because of the field of the strong magnets that hold the glass cover on. I'm sure there's a trick to it, but I'd love to know what it is for future reference.

I used needlenose pliers and the T10 to align the screw into the hole. Otherwise the screw keeps jumping to the magnet. And patience with this NON-CAPTIVE screw design (c’mon Apple, even **I** came up with that, and I’m an idiot!)

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Pull the vertical sync ribbon cable out of its socket on the LED driver board near the top left corner of your iMac.

The vertical sync ribbon cable has a ZIF style end, but the socket has no lock or retaining flap. Simply pull the cable away from its socket toward the optical drive side of the iMac to disconnect it from the LED driver board.

Reassembly of this part was the closest I came to disaster on this project. I tried inserting the connector a few times without success, and when I looked it it the leads, which are fragile, were all mangled. I smoothed them out by hand as best I could and and reinserted, very carefully this time. The trick is that the tip of the connector should be pointed somewhat upwards when reconnecting.

I was pretty sure that when I was done, I would reboot but have no display; but fortunately, everything worked.

So let’s say someone wanted to suck some of the dust off the back of the display before reassembly. Let’s just say that. Someone would likely suck this forsaken cable up into the vacuum tube then, wouldn’t they? They might. And if it were to oscillate in a rushing torrent of air, it might get munged? It might.

Here’s how you overcome such a disaster:

1) cut the end fresh, as close to the end as you can while cutting off any frayed end.

2) abrade the end gently, repeatedly, along the connector wire axis. I used emory paper. Your goal is to expose the copper conductors in the last 1/4” of the fragile evil wire.

3) Tape a small stiff cardstock to the back of the end of the connector. This is essential to press the connector wires into the connector.

4) Gently insert, taking special caution to not peel the copper off of the connector.

5) Tape that connector down deftly, without letting it move a millimeter and securing it for all time.

I have replaced the hdd in this model about 8-10 times - I have never had to disconnect any cables other than the sata and temp sensor cables on the hdd. I just prop the lcd up with an egg carton (or something about 3 inches high that is soft and light) and access the hdd that way. The only thing I ever have trouble with are is putting the LCD screws back in around the magnets - but I have pretty much perfected that with a sissor/ tweezer tool.

I found it easier to very slightly lift the front edge of the black connector with a small spudger, then gently pulling away towards the bottom of the iMac. Pressing felt a little crude and didn’t work for me.

I feel pretty silly. I spent wayyyy too long trying to get these cables disconnected. Happy I found this guide; hopefully, I won't struggle with such simple things since you provide pretty good details! Thanks.

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Remove the following four screws securing the power supply to the outer case:

Two 22.2 mm fine-thread T10 Torx

One 25 mm coarse-thread T10 Torx

One 9 mm coarse-thread T10 Torx

The next few steps bring your hands close to the exposed face of the power supply. To avoid a high voltage shock from the many large capacitors attached to the board, do not touch the face of the power supply.

I found my DC-In cable VERY difficult to detach. I depressed the locking mechanism, but still needed to use my iFixit Jimmy to carefully, gently, slowly work the cable connector (male) loose and away from the power supply (female).

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This was not easy to disconnect with one hand holding the power supply (being careful while holding just to be cautious against any possible electrical discharge). Note that the connector is not on power supply side but on AC-In cable side. Couldn't quite see well enough from photo shown, but hold on the AC-In side of cable connector (depressing the locking mechanism of the male side) and pull away from the Power Supply (female side) cable.

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These photos do not show this iMac's optional configuration that contains a discreet GPU. If a GPU card is present there is another Torx screw that must be removed that holds an additional heat sink to the upper right corner of the enclosure. Note that in this configuration, the optical drive fan has a different configuration with a plastic separator that points towards the top of the iMac. This looks to serve as channel for airflow and is noteworthy because it makes the optical drive's SATA connector much more difficult to remove and quite difficult (for me anyway) to reassemble as it is a very tight fit!

I made it to this step, then carefully removed dust from the back part, not touching any components, then used compressed air to get dust out since getting the whole logic board was a challenge, assembled and when I turn it on it loads normally, white screen with the logo, but then the screen goes black, and then the fans start running at the actual speed (I used SMC fan control) I had before I unplugged it to clean it, what could have happened? thank you =(

I had the additional GPU card, as mentioned by kevmacmills above, and needed to remove two Torx screws, one short one at the plastic separator, and one 7mm approx at the heatsink in the top right of the enclosure.

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Disconnect the DC-In cable from the logic board by simultaneously depressing the locking lever on the connector while pulling it away from its socket.

Remove the logic board from the outer case.

During reassembly of the logic board, pay attention to the position of the I/O connectors. When the board is back in the case, insert a USB or Thunderbolt cable into one of the connectors to align it perfectly.

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